Dr. Ahmed Haji Abdirahman: An Obituary

“He was sweet, gentle, and meticulous.” ___An Arab journalist eulogizing his fallen colleague.
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On December 5, 2011, two masked assailants killed Dr. Ahmed Haji Abdirahman, an educator and well-known religious scholar, in Bossaso, Somalia. The assassins shot him seven times.

Ahmed Haji Abdirahman was born in Galkacayo in 1958. His father, a successful businessman, was a member of Somalia’s first parliament after independence.

I knew Dr. Ahmed when we were both teenagers in Mogadishu during the 1970s. He was attending an all-Arabic high school run by the Egyptian government, Jamal Abdinassir, and I was attending Benadir Secondary School, where English was the language of instruction. Ahmed and I were both bookish and we had one thing in common: our love of the Arabic language. We shared books and discussed the writings of literary figures such as Dr. Taha Hussein. I still remember Ahmed reciting the first paragraph of Taha Hussein’s seminal autobiography, al-Ayyam (The Days) by heart while walking in the streets of Shingani. We would tease each other by speaking in Egyptian dialect. Of course, Ahmed spoke better Arabic than me, but that did not dissuade him from treating me as his equal. During the summer when schools were closed, Ahmed would visit his relatives in Galkacayo and its rural areas, and would share his exotic experiences with me, upon his return to Mogadishu. His stories provided me the greatest diversion, especially since, as a Mogadishu resident, I had nowhere else to go when the school was out.

During the turbulent period of the 1970s, Ahmed and I served on the executive committee of the al-Ahl Student movement. He was 18 years old, two years my senior, when we were entrusted with that responsibility. Ahmed was in that position, not because his brother-in-law (Abdulkhadir Sh. Mohamoud) was the group’s leader, but because he possessed strong leadership and intellect. Moreover, he enjoyed the respect and admiration of most of the members of the committee.

Ahmed read widely and, when he spoke, he would salt his conversations with jokes and lively anecdotes. He was friendly and energetic, a perfect combination of calmness and humility. He had the pedigree of activism. Ahmed’s older sister, Maryan Haji, was a perennial student leader, and their home, near Via Roma, was a warm and welcoming place for student leaders. Ahmed’s father- before he passed away in early 1970s- was a longtime close friend of the late Sheikh Mohamed Moalim Hassan. The latter was a regular visitor of Ahmed’s family home.

During the late 1970s, Ahmed and a group of activists joined the military in order to serve as officers. Initially, the recruits received their training at Jaalle Siyad Military Academy before some of the top recruiters were sent to the Soviet Union, Italy, Egypt, Iraq, and Sudan respectively. The first few weeks of boot camp were challenging for many of the young recruits, but Ahmed finished at the head of his class. I can still recall Ahmed’s face, wearing his thick glasses, gesturing with both hands, and relishing the chance to share with me and others the comic side of his boot camp experience. The recruits, Ahmed would say, were constantly taunted by a sergeant, whom they had nick-named “Ha-Liqin,” (Swallow not) who would interrupt and taunt them during meal times as they were gobbling down greasy rice or spaghetti. Ahmed was later sent to Iraq, for further military training. He and a mutual friend, Ali Yusuf Nur, stopped by in Cairo, when I was there, and on their way to Iraq. Both Ahmed and Ali left me a picture for remembrance of their visit. Ahmed returned to Somalia in 1980 after completing his training. After a year, he resigned from the armed forces and went to Saudi Arabia for religious training. I last saw Ahmed in December 1981 (30 years ago) in Makkah, Saudi Arabia, when I was there for a brief visit. We met at the house of his brother-in-law, Abdulkhadir, who, like Ahmed, was enrolled at Umul Quraa University. Ahmed stayed in Saudi Arabia to obtain his B.A, M.A and doctorate in Islamic studies. In 1999, Ahmed returned to Somalia and became the Vice Chair of the University of Horn of Africa in Bossasso.

During the 1990s, Ahmed was one of few scholars who were emphatically opposed to the armed skirmishes between Colonel Abdullahi Yusuf and a group of Islamists in Puntland. Ahmed saw the formation of an armed Islamic militia group, in a country going through civil war and unrest, as unwise and counter-productive. He was part of the Somali Ulama Council, led by Sh. Bashir Ahmed Salad Warsame, who declared last year that there was no “Jihad,” in Somalia. The ruling of the council infuriated the Al-Shabab militants who had always maintained that they were waging a legitimate and just war, and hence the “Jihad,” against the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the African troops stationed in Mogadishu. Ahmed’s moderate views brought him to daggers with the Al-Shabab. Ahmed and his colleagues were portrayed by the militant group as “sell-outs,” “CIA agents,” and “heretics.” To Ahmed, Somalia needed peaceful measures to restore order instead of spreading it through murder and mayhem.

The assassination of Dr. Ahmed was neither the works of the Ethiopian government nor that of Puntland Security Intelligence (PSI). These two entities could have harmed Ahmed long ago as he had lived peacefully in Puntland for many years and was working there as a professor. On many occasions, Dr. Ahmed had received death threats from anonymous callers who would ask him to disassociate himself from both the TFG and Puntland government. The Al-Shabab group’s Amniyaat (a very secretive branch under the command of Ahmed Godane and in charge of intelligence and assassinations) was, indeed, behind the killing of Dr. Ahmed H. Abdirahman. Dr. Ahmed represented everything that was anathema to the militant group- moderation, tolerance, and accentuating change through education. The Al-Shabab is a group where a culture of violence is rooted in its milieu. The terrorist group has been wreaking havoc in Somalia. They knew they could not engage in a debate with Dr. Ahmed Haji in an open forum. Instead, they chose to silence him forever with an AK-47. Fortunately, Dr. Ahmed has left behind a legacy, as many still listen to his taped-lectures, and his collection of educational videos is widely watched. His killers, on the other hand, have shown their atrocity by leaving a trail of destruction. Not long ago, the Al-Shabab militants killed Dr. Abdullahi Addow, a well-known educator and former Minister of Education, along with many students, during a graduation ceremony in Mogadishu. Dr. Ahmed is the latest victim of Al-Shabab’s secret and dark policy of “Is-Qaadi al-Rumuuz wa Qadci al- Ru’uus.” (Downing [prominent] symbols and cutting off heads.” May God bless the soul of D. Ahmed Haji Abdirahman.